The Face of Naval Battle: The Human Experience of Modern War at Sea

It is tempting to think that modern naval warfare is less dependent on people, that wars at sea will increasingly be fought over the horizon by new technologies and smart unmanned missiles. But the ultimate decisions are still made by individuals who are still seriously at risk. Humans and human factors are still decisive and remain so in modern naval warfare. This book analyses the human face of naval warfare in the past, present and future. It is a major inter-disciplinary study containing essays by eminent Australian and international experts.

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Author description

David Stevens retired from the Royal Australian Navy in 1994 after having served on many Australian ships and the Australian contingent to the Gulf War in 1990-91. He is now the Director of Naval Historical Studies in the Maritime Studies Programme, the author of U-Boat Far From Home and the editor of Maritime Power in the Twentieth Century, The Royal Australian Navy in World War II, In Search of A Maritime Strategy, and Southern Trident. John Reeve is a graduate of Melbourne and Cambridge universities and is now a senior lecturer at the Australian Defence Force Academy.

Table of contents

ForewordNotes on contributorsIllustrations, figures and tablesAcronyms and abbreviationsAcknowledgementsPart I SETTING THE SCENE1 Introduction: an anatomy of the face of naval battle John Reeve2 Operational command at sea Andrew GordonPart II ASPECTS OF THE FACE OF NAVAL BATTLE 3 Western advisors and Chinese sailors in the 1894-95 Sino-Japanese War Bruce Elleman4 The commander in crisis: Graf Spee and the German East Asian Cruiser Squadron in 1914 Peter Overlack5 Sailors and seaborne soldiers in the defence of Australia, 1914-2001 Russell Parkin6 The treatment of casualties from the Sydney-Emden action Michael Dowsett7 The aircraft carrier: the experience of its conception, procurement and operation David Hobbs8 The Second World War, Korea and Vietnam: a personal perspective on naval warfare Guy Griffiths9 Aboard HMAS Hobart in the Java Sea area in 1942 Gordon Johnson10 'The Gunner': J.E. Macdonn